Efforts to Better Enforce Building Code Violations

Our District 8 supervisor, Scott Wiener, along with Malia Cohen from District 10 are proposing a review of how buildings are inspected and how code violations are regulated. The building inspection, planning, public health and fire departments will present to the Board of Supervisors today. They’re expected to talk about procedure for responding to building code transgressions and enforcement.

“Every neighborhood has one or more dilapidated building with boarded up windows, broken stairs, major incomplete construction work, obvious extreme hoarding, or even entire portions of the building missing,” said Wiener in a press release Tuesday.

He continued, “These extreme and obvious violations can sometimes last for years. Inspections occur, but no action is taken by city departments, despite repeated complaints by neighbors about dangerous and blighted conditions. One challenge is that our complicated code inspection system lacks sufficient coordination and communication among the different departments. In addition, departments sometimes appear to be reluctant to pursue enforcement due to budget concerns. The system isn’t working for our neighborhoods.”

Today the board will potentially look into new laws that could better regulate departments and how they enforce code violations. The meeting is at 2:00 p.m. at City Hall.

District 5 Supervisor Breed, District 6 Supervisor Kim, District 9 Supervisor Campos, & District 11 Supervisor Avalos need to go along with Supervisors Wiener & Cohen, as their districts are among the most rundown, blighted in SF.